Album Review – Jennifer Wrigley ‘Catch the Rhythmic Orkney Tide and Ride’
Written by celtic music radio on February 26, 2025
Jennifer Wrigley, as well as being a former recipient of the BBC Young Tradition Award and the fiddle-playing half of the world-renowned Wrigley Sisters duo, is a composer in her own right. This album is the result of her winning an 18-month Sound and Music composing support award in 2021 and is inspired, as the title suggests, by travel to her native Orkney.
The work consists of four movements (some with multiple sections), representing migration, a safe home, a simpler way of life, and the community stimulated by and, in its turn, engendering traditional music.
Accompanying musicians include 14 students from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland as well as the talents of singer Alyth McCormack, BBC award winning guitarist and accordionist Tim Edey, BBC Folk on Two winner and past Riverdance band member, accordionist Luke Daniels, Scottish Borders pianist Harris Playfair, and Orcadian pianist Laurence Wilson. The performance was recorded at a live performance (which included the Fèis Lochabair Scottish Step Dancers) at the Conservatoire’s Chandler Studio in 2024.
The first movement, Four Bridge Crossing, is presented in 5 sections which depict travellers’ varying experiences of that journey. Its titular slow air is a beautiful piece which shifts back and forth from minor to major, high to low, responding to the undulating landscape it depicts. Harris Playfair and Tim Edey play gently understated piano and accordion, while similarly sensitive harp and percussion work is provided by last year’s Danny Kyle Award winners Eleanor Dunsdon and Gregor Black.
That’s followed by The Jellicoe Express named for the train that carried military personnel, during two World Wars, from the south of England to their base at Scapa Flow. Despite the ‘Express’ sobriquet, such trains were rarely all that fast and tended to labour on the Scottish hills. The rhythm of the wheels is thus expressed as a slow hornpipe and a thickening instrumentation evokes the slopes.
The Berriedale Crawl is a delightfully inventive piece that brought back childhood recollections of our family having to get out of our car on the journey north to lessen the weight and at times push to get Dad’s old shooting brake up the insanely steep hill after the similarly deranged hairpin bend at the bottom of this notorious roadway (now, thankfully, upgraded). The tune starts at a medium pace with a jagged changing time-signature, recalling the many zig-zags on the road, before slowing to the ‘crawl’ of the title. Ah, those memories!
The Risky Picnic, by contrast, is a gradually accelerating reel mirroring the progress of a truck on the downslope going a tad too fast and having to make use of the sandy run-off road – which, according to Jennifer, also looks like a nice place for a picnic!
The movement is topped-off with The Pentland Firth Swing where the tossing waves of that crossing inspire a reel jazzed-up by Harris Playfair pushing a stride piano bass worthy of Fats Waller.
Norway, once rulers of the islands, has a deep and longstanding musical tradition which has left its mark on Orkney. Thus the second movement, Reach for the Slip – a slow air in 4/4, evokes those melodies and the days when relieved travellers in wooden boats would be helped onto the slipways, which Stromness houses still back onto, by the helping hands of the islanders. On the opening, Jennifer takes the melody on fiddle while Laurence Wilson provides a sympathetic piano chord and counterpoint accompaniment before the band emphasises the welcoming nature of the theme, warming, but never cluttering the sound.
The third movement, Beyond the Merry Men of Mey, is named for the tidal race that pulls ships past the Old Man of Hoy on their way to safe haven in Stromness. It’s essentially the theme song of the title, while the slow 6/8 rhythm can be heard as the strong ‘ONE and TWO and” pull of oars in the tide. Alyth McCormack takes the main vocal, helped on the ‘Aye aye high high, aye aye Hoy low’ chorus by Luke Daniels. The song builds to a full-band finish with Oisin McCann’s flute and Josiah Duhlstine’s ‘cello topping and tailing the arrangement.
The fourth and final movement is a set in three sections and depicts the celebratory aspects of Orcadian life, opening with The Laughing Barn Dance – a homage to both West Lothian accordionist William Hannah and to Jimmy Shand who brought Hannah’s style to Orkney when he stayed there. It’s pushed along percussively by what sounds like wood blocks but may well be the step-dancers. That’s followed by the Midgie Minuet – reflecting the fact that many of these local dance celebrations take place at a time of year when the little insect demons are at their worst, and the finale, Tackety Boots, is inspired by a dancer whose work boots used to cause sparks to fly off the flagstones.
Jennifer Wrigley’s melodies throughout manage to capture that rare evocative quality that makes tunes memorable. Her arrangements are first-class – never too crowded, with plenty of room for exposition, light, and shade. Most importantly, given its title, this album is filled with the lilt and rhythms of Orkney.
BOB LESLIE
